The movement toward collaborative models of preservice early childhood preparation, those that attempt to "blend" preparation for both early childhood education (ECE) and early intervention/early childhood special education (EI/ECSE), is entering its fourth decade. This position paper presents a historical analysis of the blended…

More than 40 years after passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), some special education teacher preparation programs offer limited coursework on parent involvement, advocacy, or home-school collaboration. For pre-service special education teachers and/or novice special education teachers working with students with…

The purpose of this article is to examine the free appropriate public education (FAPE) requirements of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The authors first briefly examine the definition of FAPE in the IDEA. Second, they delve into the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in "Board of Education v. Rowley" and "Endrew…

An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is the cornerstone for documenting the appropriate education being provided to students who qualify for special education and related services under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. A growing group of students with a disability are students who are culturally and linguistically diverse and…

The goal of Special Education is to help individuals with disabilities transition to meaningful adult roles. When students with disabilities pursue education majors, Special Education Faculty must balance their desire to support college students with disabilities, while maintaining the rigor of their academic programs. To gain a better…

Contemporary challenges confronting special education teachers include, in part, workload, role ambiguity, evaluation, and shortages. Based on these and other challenges, the piece-meal fragmented approach to pre- and in-service training, which exists currently, needs to be replaced with 21st century models of special education teacher development…

Over the years, a variety of political, social, and other contextual factors have contributed to the expansion of roles for PK-12 special educators, leading to a complex set of challenges and opportunities that must be addressed as the field of special education looks to the future. Today's special educators need to collaborate with general…

Intended as professional development for both new and experienced special educators, this article provides both the basic requirements and nuanced issues for foundational, successive, and overlapping key components under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): (a) child find, (b) eligibility, and (c) free appropriate public…

In this study, the authors represent an exploratory investigation of current preparation of preservice teachers related to response to intervention (RTI) in institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the Office of Special Education Program (OSEP) Regional Resource and Federal Centers (RRFCs) North Central Region and Pennsylvania. In this study,…

Many students with disabilities (SWD) are not meeting proficiency, and achievement scores disaggregated by disability status show that SWD are often not meeting progress targets established by states. A survey was developed to collect data from 218 general and special educators to analyze trends in teachers' attitudes and practices that may be…

Even as research continues to suggest the potential of assistive technology for improving student outcomes, it remains under-utilized in schools. Among numerous challenges to the effective utilization of assistive technology, research has suggested that educators are inadequately prepared to consider and implement the use of such technologies. In…

Family-centered care and responsiveness to diversity are issues of great import for early childhood special education teachers. Nevertheless, the research for these related areas is divided throughout the field. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a master's-level course designed to integrate instruction in family-centered…

Three studies are described in this article. Each is focused on a different aspect of the long-standing initiative that supports special education doctoral students. This initiative is one of the discretionary programs of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act that is managed by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of…

The alignment of the teacher quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the transparency of low achievement of students who have disabilities under the testing mandates of NCLB have converged to create substantial renewed interest and activity in collaborative programs…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandates that every classroom be staffed with a "highly qualified teacher." Research supports that teachers' content knowledge affects student achievement. However, the special education population continues to be taught by teachers who do not have the content area background they teach. In addition,…